Paving the way for community service

After being damaged during this year’s harsh winter storms, the roof at the farmhouse in rural Davis was in dire need of repair. The Yolo Community Care Continuum (YCCC) was able to receive a $6,240 grant from the Sacramento Region Community Foundation to replace part of their farmhouse’s roof.

As the director of development at YCCC, Debbie Woodsford noted the simple nature of reaching out to the foundation.

“The process was very easy,” Woodsford said. “It’s through the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, and every year they put out a grant opportunity that they call their ‘immediate needs’ grants.”

Acquired in 1986, the farmhouse was YCCC’s first facility where people with mental illnesses could work.

“We acquired [the farmhouse] by virtue of a group of parents who had adult children with mental illnesses,” Woodsford said. “Their illness was too severe to live at home, but they didn’t want them to be locked up.”

This facility remains a place where people with mental illnesses can learn to work and live productively before returning to the community.

“People live there; it’s a 10-bed facility,” Woodsford said. “They can stay at the farmhouse for up to 18 months –– they have group counseling sessions, and they learn how to work cohesively.”

The farmhouse was atypical and a place of refuge for the mentally ill. This grant serves a greater purpose in helping the local community.

Vasey Coman, a marketing associate at the Foundation, explained the Foundation’s role.

“The review committee looks for immediate needs. They score the narrative questions, and they also score the budget that the nonprofit provided,” Coman said. “Beyond that, our goal is to make sure that we are diversifying our funding regionally and also by what we are funding that is representative of the needs in our community.”

The Foundation strives to enhance the work that local nonprofits are doing in the region, allowing access for people who want to better serve the community.

“Impactful. Impactful is really the one word I would choose to describe the Foundation,” Coman said. “It started about 35 years ago by a group of really dedicated community leaders who love this place and they thought, ‘How can we better collaborate and pool our funds and resources to make a better impact?’”

Amy Eubank, a senior program associate at the Foundation, described the initiatives within the organization:

“Our foundation has four initiatives that we focus on,” Eubank said. “We focus on nonprofits and capacity building like the Big Day of Giving. Our other three are on food access, the arts and education.”

As advocates for a better quality of life, the Sacramento Region Community Foundation and the Yolo Community Care Continuum continue to serve the city of Davis in different ways. The grant put toward the farmhouse is a step forward in helping people thrive within the community.